As you may have heard, a fifteen year old in Iowa is running for president under the pseudonym “Deez Nuts”. While he is not able to legally become president of the United States, the candidate is doing better than most independent candidates in recent memory and is showing an eight percent favorability rating in his home state of Iowa. While many find Deez Nuts to be a mockery of the electoral process, I personally believe that Deez Nuts is good for America. I believe this because I have a sense of humor, and because Deez Nuts exemplifies the dilapidated and pitiable state of America’s primary election system.
America’s primary election system used to be great. The implementation of the system prevented political parties from presenting Americans with only two choices for the position of President and gave individuals who would not have been selected by their party to run, like John F. Kennedy, a chance to create a campaign and an opportunity to hold the office. However, due to an influx of candidates running for president, a vast increase in the amount of money necessary to run a successful presidential campaign, and the media’s need to cover big names rather than relevant issues has made the process kind of a joke. Moreover, it’s not even a funny joke like Deez Nuts.
With more than a year before the actual election, the Republican Party currently has seventeen candidates running for the office of the president of the United States. The current frontrunner of this primary, Donald Trump, has already made enough questionable comments to guarantee that no moderate voter will cast their vote for him. This is demonstrative of the biggest issue with the current presidential primary elections. In order for a candidate to win the primary election they need to appeal to their base, which entails adopting their base’s most extreme views. However, this makes it works counter to the goal of appealing to the largest number of voters possible in the general election.
Deez Nuts exemplifies how the primary election is in a poor condition on an even more basic level. It is impossible to believe a system can lead to any amount of success when it is possible for a fifteen year old to use an obvious pseudonym to half-complete a declaration of candidacy form and actually have the for accepted. The fact that Deez Nuts can actually make it onto an election ballot makes it clear that people do not take the primary election seriously and that it has become incredibly flawed.
If the story of Deez Nuts makes you laugh, that is probably a good thing. It shows that you either have a sense of humor, or have realized that the primary system has been messed up for a long time and are glad that it is falling further into the public eye. If Deez Nuts make you angry, I would suggest not getting mad at the fifteen year old, but rather the crummy system that allowed Deez Nuts to be a presidential candidate. Then channel that anger into trying to fix this problem.
How do you feel about Deez Nuts in the context of the electoral system? Please send all questions and comments to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
